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Obama asks Congress for $3.7B to cope with kids entering the U.S. illegally

Immigration Overload Hot Spot

In this June 20, 2014 photo, immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally stand in line for tickets at the bus station after they were released from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in McAllen, Texas. The immigrants entered the country through an area referred to as zone nine.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

WASHINGTON — Tackling what he has called a humanitarian crisis, President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress for $3.7 billion to cope with a tide of minors from Central America who are illegally crossing the U.S. southern border, straining immigration resources and causing a political firestorm in Washington.

The White House says the money would help increase the detention, care and transportation of unaccompanied children, help speed the removal of adults with children by increasing the capacity of immigration courts, and would increase prosecution of smuggling networks. The money would also increase surveillance at the U.S. border and help Central American countries repatriate border-crossers sent back from the United States.

Obama requested the money in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday. The request did not include proposals for legislative changes that the White House wants. But Obama said he still will seek such changes, including providing the secretary of Homeland Security additional authority to use discretion to speed up the removal of children from countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Obama said he also wants increased penalties for individuals who smuggle vulnerable migrants, such as children.

Obama plans to discuss the crisis with faith and local leaders during a political fundraising visit to Texas Wednesday, but he is resisting calls to visit the border for a firsthand look. The White House invited Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is among those urging Obama to get to the border while he's in the state, to Wednesday's meeting in Dallas.

Perry's spokesman Lucy Nashed confirmed that Perry and Obama will meet when Obama is in Texas. Perry "is pleased that President Obama has accepted his invitation to discuss the humanitarian and national security crisis along our southern border," Nashed said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, called the situation on the border "extremely dire."

"It is clear that additional funding will be needed to ensure the proper care of these unaccompanied children, to enforce the law, and to further secure our border so that these problems can be mitigated in the short term," he said in a statement. "Our committee will focus on providing what is necessary to meet these ongoing needs."

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said appropriators and lawmakers working on the border crisis would review the White House proposal. But he said Obama's request fell short in one respect.

"The speaker still supports deploying the National Guard to provide humanitarian support in the affected areas — which this proposal does not address," Steel said.

The White House request would:

—Seek $1.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to help deter border-crossers and increase enforcement. That would include $879 million to pay for detention and removal of adults traveling with children, to provide additional detention space for those individuals, and to speed up the prosecution of adults who cross the border unlawfully with children.

—Seek $433 for Customs and Border Protection to cover overtime costs and for additional facilities to detain unaccompanied children while they are in Border Patrol custody. It also includes nearly $40 million to increase air surveillance, such as drone flights along the border.

— Provide $64 million to the Department of Justice, with much of the money spend on hiring 40 additional teams of immigration judges. The White House says that together with a previous request for 35 additional teams, the system would be able to process an additional 55,000 to 75,000 cases annually.

—Provide $1.8 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services for the care of unaccompanied children, including shelter and medical care.

As lawmakers return to Washington this week from a weeklong July 4th recess, Obama's spending request is set to be a focus, with the Senate Appropriations Committee scheduling a hearing to examine it.

The developments all come as Obama has declared comprehensive immigration legislation dead in Congress and announced plans to proceed on his own by executive action to make whatever fixes he can to the nation's dysfunctional immigration system.

That could put Obama in the seemingly contradictory position of weighing proposals to shield millions of people from deportation while at the same time trying to hurry deportations for the unaccompanied children.

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